Princess of the White Rose
by bewitchedbewildered
Summary: Moments build a person, and the resident ninja is no different. Yuffie centric.
1. Getting started

AN: This is a project that I put together due to wanting RP headcanon. Her mother's name is from the cut files of FFVII and most of this is simply me coming up with rationales and ideas.

So! Tell me what you think please!

I don't own FFVII, I don't own Yuffie, and I don't own the places or people mentioned that belong to the franchise.

_____________________________________________________________________

She is barely a year old when the war begins. Her mother becomes quickly disturbed to find her daughter can sleep as easily through the cannon fire that comes up from the beaches as she can lullabies.

-

Yuffie is six years old when she first hears the name Shinra and can put a face to this name. Her father (back when her father was still father and not Godo) is speaking in a language she cannot understand to men who look like nothing she's ever seen before in her life. She sits sieza beside her mother watching the way these men speak, and the way her father loses his temper slowly in stages until he's screaming at these men with masks on. Silver reflective masks, and she can see her father's face twisted in rage reflecting back at him. She almost forgets her place and stands to yell too, though her mother's arm wraps around her like a shield. She remembers the look of her mother's pale face with an expression something like fear. At the time she has no idea what's being said, and therefore thinks her father had won when the men leave, her father's voice still ringing in the hall.

He hadn't.

-

Shinra doesn't take kindly to the word 'No'. They don't find out how bad the situation is for another six months. Yuffie is seven and her father promises to let her in the council chamber if she will keep quiet. So she does.

This is the first time she hears the name Sephiroth. She hears it often, talking of this boy and how he can command. He's closer to her age then her father's, and she hears the word demon thrown about in the chamber, reverberating off the walls and settling in her dreams that night. She wakes up screaming when her nurse enters the room, setting off the homemade trap meant to stop the demon.

She ends up scolded, sent back to bed, and told she isn't allowed back in the council chamber if she's going to behave so ridiculously.

The next time she wakes with nightmares, she keeps them to herself.

-

She's eight when the official embargo is put in place. It takes her an hour to understand what is going on, the words are mostly in Gaian and she's not quite fluent. But she can understand her mother's harsh words to the general currently holding the front. She can hear things about surrender and how it's not an option. She hears her mother say words she's never heard her say in her life. All of them angry.

Her father catches her hiding behind the drapes and tells her she's supposed to be in lessons. He pulls her out from hiding and ushers her out the door.

As she leaves she catches the way her mother's face drains of color seeing her there and the image will stay with her for the rest of her life.

-

It's four months later and her mother's face still is pale as the day she left the council room. She's gained dark rims around her eyes that look like she's never slept a day in her life, and her skin looks weak and bruises far easier then it ever had before. Her mother is the strongest woman she knows, and it's slowly getting harder and harder to see why.

She walks in to her mother and father talking alone over some matter quietly in their chambers and hides herself behind a statue by the door, positive that it's not something to interrupt. Her father watches her mother calmly from where they are sitting comfortably close. Even at eight, she knows that her parents are connected in a way like you'd expect from myths. Her father was a prince when they met after all, so it makes perfect sense to her.

Kasumi looks half asleep by the time the conversation is almost over and Yuffie could swear it almost looks like her father is about to cry as he's stroking her hair.

She pretends she didn't see and leaves quietly as she came, truly grateful to her training for the first time when she isn't caught.

-

It's the rainy season in Wutai when Yuffie's whole world crashes down on her.

Or, it might as well be the world. It seems enough like it.

She likes to think the sky is crying with her as they let Kasumi Kisaragi return to the Lifestream.

(She tries to ignore even years later how Godo doesn't look at her for two weeks afterwards and even after that, it's only a passing bow at some ceremonial dinner. Yuffie is angry enough at her father without taking the time to pick apart a time where she was grieving too much to care to add more reasons to the mess.)

-

She's ten years old when she sees her first SOLDIERs up close. They're delivering some attempt at a treaty and they're both so proud and look so strong that even she, daughter of the Lord of Wutai, feels nervous.

The one talks in such a strange pattern and his manner is so practiced that it makes Yuffie's eyes glaze. Speaking of 'World's End' to people who's world you're ending is pretty damn mean as far as she's concerned and she loses all attempts at caring what the man has to say after he's gotten only about half his speech in.

The other is a lot calmer and quieter. If she didn't know better, she'd think he was one of their warriors with his even temper. He doesn't yell, or whoop, or talk funny, he's focused and obviously a lot more worthy of the honor of being allowed into the capital. Not that either of them are, she quickly catches herself and amends, but he's better then the other one.

And she actually does bow to him in respect when they leave. The red haired one doesn't even seem to notice one tiny princess's act of rebellion, though the calm one does. She pretends to not enjoy the small smile she gets, but does anyway.

-

She's eleven when she meets one.

He's smaller then she'd expect, though still much larger then her, and all her plans fly out of her mind the second she's in a foot of him. She'd planned to steal from him, to get revenge for his disgracing their warriors, to hurt him…. But when she's in front of the man she quickly realizes that no matter what she says, he's still very much taller then her and is carrying a sword.

She ran away without a weapon that morning, trying to escape lessons and a strict nurse and now, trying to guard a temple that has better guardians then she can hope to be (Magic does beat the greatest in Wutai. Just by a little.).

Yuffie's honestly surprised when he plays along, taking her for a kid who is playing instead of a child warrior who realized at the last moment exactly what she was dealing with.

For once, she's just fine to not be taken seriously and makes it all the way back to her room before she stops running.

-

It's the rainy season again, and Yuffie stands beside Godo as he signs their surrender. Really, the war's been over for about a month, there just hit a point where nothing they did worked and the infamous Silver General has come to do things before the press.

She remembers years of nightmares and doesn't look up the entire time waiting in the hall for the guests to arrive and Shinra's press. All the press is for Shinra. Shinra's the only group with something to prove. They're still proud. They're still Wutanese. And they have nothing to prove.

That's what Godo says anyway. And she believes him.

She looks when she hears the doors open and hears the rush of sound from outside. It's loud and there is far too much of it, there's people shouting and the bustle of people and cameras is a chaos the likes of which Yuffie has never seen in her life and she watches in awe of the sheer level of _noise_ and _movement_ she can sense and see.

And then the 'diplomatic' party finally enters the room, and she's instantly distracted. The person she sees before her is both everything and nothing like she expected and it is astounding to think that this man is younger then Godo when he carries himself with equal pride.

She is surprised, as is Godo, when he orders the doors shut, locking the press on the other side. Godo tenses beside her as the General comes further into the room and speaks in simple, clean Wutanese.

"I don't think we should make a scene of this."

He is calm and direct, and though it's easy to see the kind of leader he is, he seems to at least be willing to behave reasonably in their halls throughout the whole meeting.

The entire time, Yuffie glares at him through her hair and finds herself wishing he made it easier for her to hate him.

-

She's thirteen the first time she yells at Godo. Full out, angry, loud, yelling that fills the halls and makes people stop and stare at the royal family's breakdown in the middle of the hall. Her father had just dissolved the main branch of the military, only an hour ago. Sending the men back to their jobs and lives, even those who had fought their whole lives and knew nothing else.

"You're catering to them! This wasn't in the treaty, father, and we both know it! I've read it as many times as you have!'

She never forgives him for the way the fire in his eyes doesn't match his voice, and how he simply tells her she knows nothing and sends her to her chambers with little more then a glance.

She thinks she could have forgiven him if he'd simply yelled at her, done anything else.

As long as it hadn't been that.

As it is, she doesn't speak to him for the next week straight.

-

It's two months later when she finally unlocks a limit, she's three months shy of fourteen and her teacher is practically giddy. Well, as giddy as that man can get.

"It's wonderful, Lady Yuffie! And so early too! Your father will be so proud! We should inform him immediately!"

It takes him two days to get the message, and by then, even the workers on the docks are congratulating her on her success.

When he finally does say something, it's in passing on the second day, and she simply does not respond, turns on her heel, and leaves.

-

It's just past her fourteenth birthday when she stops calling him Father.

She thinks it's depressing that the officials in the room had a more extreme response to her being so disrespectful then he did.

So she simply vows to not call him her Father until he acts like it again.

-

She's four and a half months from fifteen and the Turks show up for vacation in Wutai.

It's barely five minutes after she sees them that she is throwing open the doors to Godo's council chamber, screaming about how he could let these people even back on their shores-

…And is face to face with a traitor in a black suit.

It's the first time she _really_ hates a Turk for being anything more then just that, and the first time she hates Godo for sitting with the traitor over paperwork and tea like a social gathering.

She's crying by the time she hits her room, and stops by the time the cleaning woman from downstairs has followed her in to ask what was wrong two minutes later, grinning at her with too many teeth and a heart that's breaking.

She's their damned Princess and there is no way in _hell_ she's going to let herself cry over this anymore then she already has.

-

On her birthday, she sits very calmly up in the mountains overlooking Wutai. She's sitting on the head of one of the enormous statues, looking at her city, her people…Her home.

She can only think of one thing to do to help them. She has to get stronger, to bring strength to them. The only thing she can think of are the glowing crystals that brought the other side so much power during the war.

Magic, Power, Mako…..Those are the things the world is run on now. And Godo can't see it, wont see it. That what they need to fight back are the things they're fighting.

She doesn't want to see people turned into monsters with glowing eyes, she doesn't want to see things like the pictures of the reactors she's seen in books, she doesn't want to see a world powered by the Shinra electric power company.

All she wants is Wutai. She wants it like she remembers, she wants music and Origami and pride and warriors and….

She wants….

She wants her parents back.

But there's only so much she can do. So she'll do what she must, to get what she can.

-

The summer after her fifteenth birthday there is a very nice, clear day. It's almost surprisingly nice. But no one in Wutai seems to take notice. The entire city is in an uproar and the Princess is halfway across the island by ten that morning.

By nightfall she takes her first steps onto the main content of Gaia.

The three days after, she almost turns right around and goes home. She hasn't been alone this long before in her life, and it feels….Odd. It's almost-…

She feels lonely. For the first time in her life she is truly alone. Really and totally alone.

But she remembers why she left in the first place, so she doesn't. Instead, she goes hunting, catches dinner, sets up her campsite and polishes her shuriken while her dinner cooks.

When it's done, she cleans up after herself, curls up in her bedroll, and watches the stars.

And she has no regrets at all.


	2. Relating to an enemy

Hey! It's me again, and as usual, if you recognize it, it does not belong to me.

There's some one-sided Yuffie/Cloud this chapter, but that's about it.

* * *

Four weeks after, she finds herself screaming.

Not for any good reason mind you, but just to have the noise.

-

Three months after, she takes her first steps into Junon.

She didn't like resupplying in smaller cities, it always felt like people were looking right at her, all the time. What, had they never seen anyone Wutanese before? ...Okay, so most of them probably hadn't.

But still. Staring. It was getting old. Had gotten old.

But in Junon? It was huge. It was loud. And no one looked at her more then to try and call her into their stores. It was…Well, it was interesting, and at least no one was staring at her like a sideshow freak.

-

The monsters had been getting worse. Yuffie had known she would be fighting creatures and things when she left. However, she hadn't ever thought she'd be completely near defeated by them. In her defense, it was a pack, and she was alone.

Two months after that, she's trying to use the Cure she'd gotten off a passing regiment in one of her Junon trips. The gash in her side_ hurts._ GAIA, it hurts and she's positive she's starting to pass what is safe for blood loss, her head getting dizzy even as she tries her hardest to focus.

She's not going to let this continue, she can fix this. She can-

The wash of green that floods over her cools and repairs the ache, and suddenly it's easier to breathe.

-

She's sixteen and officially has been beaten.

"YOU SPIKEY HEADED JERK! ONE MORE TIME! LET'S GO ONE MORE TIME!"

-

It's two days after this…group…thing…. brought her along.

They're strong, they're _very_ strong. And most importantly they have materia. Very good materia. _Amazing_ materia. They even have _summons_.

She sits on the outside of the campsite they've set up, it's big cause there are five of them. Six with her. Yuffie thought initially the one to worry about was the big one with the arm (Barrett. She remembers. Ninjas remember everything. She has to remember.), but really, the one to worry about might be the girl with the black hair. Tifa.

Tifa keeps looking at her funny. Tifa keeps looking at her funny and she doesn't like it. She doesn't like it at all.

She's still musing about how Tifa is looking at her when Tifa suddenly really IS looking at her, standing above her. Yuffie jumps, not expecting someone to sneak up on her, and looks up only to find the woman staring down at her.

About to snap out a reply, Yuffie is silenced by what the woman does.

"Yuffie? Why don't you come sit with us? It's warmer by the fire, and you should eat something."

Yuffie blinks a few times, not quite understanding, before a smile spreads across her face and following her to the group. She's out of practice with people, so it feels almost awkward to sit with all of them, hearing jokes, talking, but she finds it's a lot easier to continue it once she's started it.

She starts to realize that the weird way Tifa was looking at her is the way she looks at everyone, and starts to piece it together as protective. She's not used to the look…And would almost be offended if Barrett wasn't getting it too.

But as things are? She thinks she's kinda okay with it. Just a little bit.

-

It's been a week, and she's already feeling too comfortable.

She's supposed to steal from these people, she's supposed to take their materia and run. Go home. Fix things.

That's supposed to be her goal in life. What she's supposed to do. It's her mission.

She has to restore Wutai's honor. So she can't get too comfortable. Even with Aerith, who smells like flowers and who's smile reminds her of her mother's. She doesn't like to look at her very long for that reason. It makes her nervous, almost. She thinks Aerith's going to break at first. She's thin and small and has a feel of almost dancing as she walks. It makes Yuffie jealous and curious at the same time. She wonders how the hell a woman like her got with a group like this, because it's obvious to her that something is…Off isn't the word. But it's close enough.

All reservations leave her the second she sees Aerith fight. She's smiling as she monster goes down, all loose brown hair and dancing green eyes as she and Yuffie and Red protect the camp while the others resupply. As the monster disappears into nothing, she feels a wash of magic flood over her and grins in Aerith's direction, sensing where the cure had come from.

She wondered to herself how she ever let herself judge someone by how they appeared. She should know by now, that's never a smart idea.

-

Two and a half weeks in, she thinks she might really be in trouble.

They've stopped in a house for the night, just at the outskirts of Junon, and Tifa's making dinner like it's nothing at all but it smells amazing and will probably taste as good. Barrett's so loud and talking constantly, he's swapping stories with Tifa and Aerith, all three of them equally engaged and animated as they talk, talking with their hands and faces, showing so much that it's jarring.

She stops petting Nanaki suddenly and hears a quiet little annoyed sound as the large….cat….thing…settles into the idea of no longer having his neck scratched.

It's just so loud and lively and happy and…It's stupid, but it looks like how friends _should _look. How a family should look.

It makes her almost sick to think she's going to betray them. She excuses herself for air, being told that if she's going to leave to collect their leader as she walks out the door….before walking outside and slumping against the brick of the wall outside the front door.

She closes her eyes and tries to think this all through, how she's going to hurt them, betray them. So what? It's not like they can't get other materia. And theirs is GOOD. Fantastic even. Amazing. And they keep getting more.

The longer she's with them the more materia they collect, the stronger they get, the stronger she gets….

She opens her eyes.

She can do this. Wutai needs this. Needs to be strong again.

What's a bunch of misfit freaks and ex-Shinra experiments and employees when all of Wutai is at stake? She shouldn't care.

So she won't.

…. But even her new found resolve doesn't stop her from walking to the beach to tell Cloud it's time for dinner, and dragging him back with her when he doesn't respond immediately.

-

She hates boats.

So when she's stuck on one for two days between Junon and Costa she thinks she's going to have a damned fit.

She feels sick and useless and it's crazy, but she would rather be back home in Wutai at this moment then on this monstrosity crowded with Shinra soldiers and DRESSED as one. Yuffie's ready to throw up and practically feels like she could cry, her head hurts so bad…

So she's distracted when a hand sits on her shoulder and something is put in front of her.

"Take this, you'll feel better. We'll come wake you up before anything happens, okay?"

She could practically _kiss_ Cloud Strife at that very moment.

But she takes the tranquilizer instead.

-

It's a month in when she has her first real scare.

She doesn't even know what hit her, only that the next moment suddenly everything's white hot and she feels wet drip down her stomach and the force of whatever it is has her dizzy and spinning and on the ground far away from where she had been standing.

She doesn't even register it hurting until the world stops spinning and she can hear voices all shouting her name and the thing they were fighting is so loud and…And…

-

Two days later, she wakes up.

She blinks, once, twice…And nearly jumps out of her skin to feel a hand on her forehead and see a smiling face in her vision.

"I knew you would be alright Yuffie. You had everyone worried, though"

She smiles up at Aerith and asks how well they did without her to look after everyone.

-

She can't help herself when the urge strikes her to poke it.

It's fuzzy, and cartoonish, and ridiculous and she thinks it looks something like a stuffed animal she saw in a Junon window, when she was still traveling on her own.

Of course, poking it and calling it, an it makes Cait angry and picking it up off the moogle to tell it off for calling her any number of things is surprisingly harder then it should be considering it's VERY heavy for a stuffed animal.

Not too heavy, but still heavier then expected.

And shaking it only gets her bopped on the head with its megaphone and Tifa pulling it out of her hands with a look that's something between a smile and chastising.

-

The name strikes her as odd as the looks of the people talking to them. They look a little too familiar, like she's seen them somewhere.

For once, she can tell exactly what everyone else in the room is thinking as they talk to the couple in Gongaga. Aerith looks so tired, just…Tired. And Yuffie doesn't let herself resist the urge to use her to lean against; acting tired herself, like she's going to fall asleep on Aerith in the middle of the odd conversation. But really, as much as she likes to pretend it's just to take a nap, it's more to distract her enough that the distant look will leave her eyes.

Tifa and Cloud look just as uncomfortable, but Tifa's is more obvious while Cloud just looks more…Confused? By his discomfort. It's odd and weird and she wishes she could do more to make them feel better, but they're on the other side of the table. And so she settles herself into the idea that she can't help all of them, ignores the weird sense of recognition that makes her feel as strange as the conversation, and focuses on pretending to be tired.

-

Yuffie's mother used to say she got hunches. Feelings.

She'd use them to go off of, make decisions. She'd never understood what her mother meant until she left Wutai, and now runs on them like breathing.

And now she has one and all it tells her to do is get away.

Nibelheim is so many kinds of creepy she can't stand it. And the vacant look Cloud keeps getting makes Yuffie nervous. Very nervous. But only cause if the leader's nervous that means she should be. Only… But…

All she knows is there is a small, tiny moment where she is so deathly afraid of him she wants to run and scream and get away….And she has no idea why. His eyes have always glowed. There's nothing in them to scare her. And Cloud isn't the type to hurt her or any of them…

So, she has to honestly stop and wonder what it was she saw, just for that split second, that made every instinct she had scream danger.

-

The new guy is creepy.

But that's expected in a creepy rebuilt town, with creepy people and creepy feelings coming off even her fri-….Temporary allies.

But he speaks evenly and calm, but strong. Very strong. He's mysterious and strange and Yuffie thinks he's probably the coolest thing she's ever seen. If he was less with the dark and moody she might be inclined to have a crush. Maybe.

But, she's got to admit, the tall, dark, handsome, and mysterious thing sure is working for him. _REALLY_ working for him.

…And the entertainment value of watching Tifa try to explain how the PHS works to him after thirty years is hilarious.

-

He's the newest member after Vincent, and she does not like him at all.

Cid is mean and coarse and so many kinds of not helpful. She has no idea what any of them are thinking when they collect him.

But then again, Cid is sincere and smart and has a chip on his shoulder at Shinra as much as any of them so really he's good choice. And he's probably not going to betray everybody either. So, in a way, he's a better choice then she is.

And that makes her more upset than it should.

-

She managed to get all the way to her hiding spot, all the way there before it hit her what she'd done. The looks on their faces. Cloud's eyes had gone wide and he'd almost gained the look of being fucking _five_, and Tifa's yells, and Aerith calling her name, and…and Red chasing her…and….and everyone.

It was all such a joke.

She'd always been on their side only long enough to get here. She had everything. Everything she'd gone to get.

Turns out she's just as greedy as they'd always called her.

She wants to keep them too.

-

It's two days after the stupid stealing thing, and she's sitting in a cell.

With a Turk.

This must be some kind of punishment by the gods or something, it's all she can come up with. Elena (The Turk. She corrects herself) looks a little sick, like she wants to throw up or hit the walls till her fists break for failing when it counts.

Yuffie can relate.

-

It's the next morning when she's rubbing her wrists and Aerith's cool fingers are looking at the rope burns with heavy disapproval and she can't tell if it's aimed at her or at the man who tied her up in the first place.

She begins to wonder if it's the second when she feels Aerith's hand wrap around her wrist with a smile, saying it will be better in a day or two.

It doesn't even cross her mind to ask, she's too busy not screaming out an apology, and Cloud seems to take pity on her, telling her to simply return everything and come along.

If she didn't already have that weird fluttering in her stomach when he talked she was sure she'd have it now when he smirks at her, and ruffles her hair like they've all come to do even though it makes her feel like a kid.

It doesn't even occur to her to tell him to knock it off either.

-

A week later she sits in a cable car, it's been a very very good night in her opinion, and she's even managed to get Cloud to laugh at her tirade over the stupid dragon suit and how bad it had smelled.

"Did anybody go get that knight guy anyway? I think he was kinda stuck." She says almost offhandedly, not really expecting an answer but filling the air space because if Cloud wasn't gonna, she would.

When the car starts it surprises her by not making her sick, though she was prepared for it, and she leans out the window, hooking her ankles under the seat so she wont fall. It's beautiful. Not beautiful like Wutai, serene and historic, and not beautiful like the sun over the Nibel mountains, so close she could almost touch the sun. But it's something like awe, people made this. Put it together, keep it running. The lights, the sounds, the fireworks…They're all made by people, for other people to enjoy, weather or not that was the reason for it in the first place. It seems like the prettiest thing this side of the world and it's the best place she can think of to try what she's meant to.

So, she denies what little fear she has, and turns around, stands up, and crosses to her friend who makes butterflies beat against the inside of her ribs every time he looks at her, and kisses him. It's quick, simple, and she's back across the car in moments after it happens. Somehow, she thought getting up the courage to do that would mean something, like in those little novels she and Tifa and Aerith laugh at on shelves as they're re-supplying, like there'd be _something._ Like a spark that would make everything great, and he'd notice her for real instead of Aerith or Tifa, who are both amazing, and beautiful, and make her feel awkward in comparison, even though she _knows_ she's fantastic and it should be obvious even without some big epiphany.

But there's no change, and he looks more confused then anything, and maybe even Great Ninjas can't get everything they want.

"I just felt like doing that..."

-

She's still resigning herself to being the odd girl out when she and Cloud stumble into the cat leaving the hotel…With the Keystone! She almost wants to call Barrett and yell at him because she's SURE Cait was bunking in his room.

Yuffie doesn't know why his betrayal makes her blood boil the way it does, or makes her snarl like someone's personally offended her, but she and Cloud are running after him moments later. She jumps on and over a table, scattering someone's cards and chips in the process and Cloud's stuck somewhere in the evening traffic ahead of her, but she knows that they have to catch that little-

_Finally _she can see him and he's throwing the keystone to that _traitor_ like it's nothing, and she can barely see straight she's so angry. She barely hears what he's saying as he tries to justify, instead screaming at him and lunging forward to grab the fucking cat and shake him, only to have Cloud grab her shoulder to hold her back, though it looks like he's close to as angry as she is, maybe angrier.

"Part of Shinra? WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!"

She watches the rest of the conversation, tossing in her opinions until a kid's voice comes through. The way Cloud's face pales suddenly and twists back into anger but sharper, more vicious, and the name she hears is enough to guess who the kid is. Barrett's girl he won't stop talking about.

Cloud's right when he calls Cait and whoever's behind him the lowest.

-

A week later, they're finally at the temple and Cloud looks as unnerved as she feels. Holding the keystone in one hand and waiting for Aerith and Cloud to follow her, she tries not to even look at the traitor bleeding out on the floor. He's not worth her time. He's not. Even if her stomach twists in knots, that's just all the crazy energy from the temple. Not feeling sorry for the bastard. It's not. He's a fucking Wutanese man in Shinra, he's the lowest of the low. She's holds Cait higher in her regard, and that's hard to do these days.

Instead, she waits, patient for once, and wonders absently about Aerith's list and if any of them are on it.

-

She tries to tell herself the next morning that she should always listen to her instincts.

And as she watches Cloud lose himself she thinks exactly how awful it is to have to tell yourself '_I told you so_'.


End file.
